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Happy New Year?

  • By Shannon O'Connor
  • 01/01/18

Welcome to 2018. It’s time to celebrate a new year and look forward with optimism to the opportunities provided by its arrival, right? I suppose it is, although I’ll confess it’s a challenge for someone who entered the new year with a stuffy head cold, living in an area experiencing days of sub-zero to sub-freezing temperatures. Still it could be worse. And I know for certain that it will get better.

Why am I optimistic?

I’m optimistic because of what you do. You educate your students. It doesn’t matter if they’re 18-year-old recent high school graduates, 30-year-old military veterans, or 50-year-old mid-life career changers. Whether they aspire to be actors, plumbers, or astrophysicists, you work every day to provide exceptionally safe, supportive, comfortable, sustainable spaces in which each one of them can find their individual path to success. When presented with simply a new calendar year or intriguing new trends in how facilities are designed, operated, or managed or how curriculum is packaged and delivered, you proactively evaluate and integrate the “new” in order to offer the best.

In welcoming the new, both the year and transformations to the higher ed landscape, this issue of CP&M includes our annual January examination of trends in the industry. For 2018, these include moving beyond sustainable to regenerative design for campus facilities, which is aimed at positive ecological change for the environment. Also included is information on a growing movement into partnerships—for shared services, for new or shared facilities—to enhance and strengthen institutional performance. And no look into a crystal ball for what’s on the horizon would be complete without the latest on technology, whether it’s for procurement of goods and services or delivery of content to your students. A collection of your peers offer their expertise and insights on what’s ahead. It looks good.

There is no question that this will be an interesting year. You will continue to have my admiration and, through the content of CP&M, my support as you forge ahead on what may occasionally be bumpy roads. I believe that in the work of providing education, what matters is both the journey AND the destination; as long as we continue to teach… and learn.

Happy New Year!

This article originally appeared in the College Planning & Management January 2018 issue of Spaces4Learning.

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